Even when you don't mean to be critical, problems and targets just pop out at you. This seems like proof that things really are that bad. You don't realize how your mind creates this reality by zooming in on details that fit your neural template—and skimming over the rest of the story. But you can take a break from this negativity once you know how your mind creates it. You can even notice the good things around you when you can detach your critical lens.

So why is it so hard to let the sun shine in?

Critical ad Absurdum

The people around me say things are bad and they're only getting worse: Our leaders are flawed, our culture is lacking, our health is failing, our species is endangered, our planet is dying, the last century was the worst ever, and the new millennium is shaping up to be just as bad.

It starts to seem like some people criticize just to keep in practice. When they go out for dinner and a movie, they look for flaws not only in the food and the film, but the systems that created them. Reality disappoints as their brains skillfully compare it to their expectations. Disappointment triggers cortisol, the stress hormone, which feeds the habit. The electricity in our brain flows like water in a storm, finding the path of least resistance. When you see familiar problems, your brain lights up effortlessly because past cortisol flows paved those neural pathways.

Here are some of the ways we become wired to criticize:

Criticizing builds social bonds. People often connect by focusing on common grievances. You may feel like you must embrace the shared sense of threat to avoid being excluded. You don't notice the neural template that drives these thoughts because you interact with people who share it. You feel like you're just seeing the truth.

Criticizing society makes you feel like an intelligent, even caring person. Schools typically train students to use “critical theory” to focus their minds on finding flaws in “the system.” If you adopt this thought habit, you can thrive in academia. If you don’t, you’re considered a lightweight.

The news keeps you focused on problems and crises near and far. Journalists and TV producers are constantly scanning the world for evidence of danger. They dwell on dangers for days on end to keep you tuning in for an update. You keep building your brain's sense of danger when you expose yourself to "the" news.

You can train your brain to focus on a different slice of life. But it's not easy because the electricity in your brain tends to flow into the deepest grooves. It takes effort to activate new circuits in our brain, which is why so many people fall into the habit of repeating their usual critiques and ignoring the rest of the story. If this is your routine, you can end up feeling bad without realizing that you have created the feeling yourself. Fortunately, if you choose to focus on positives instead of negatives, new pathways start building!

Take a Break

I'm not saying you should focus on butterflies, puppies and rainbows. I'm saying you have the power to take off your critical lens and see something new. You will be amazed at the new observations that strike you when your attention is not preoccupied with the same old gripes.

This can be harder than you expect. It takes a lot of energy for your brain to activate neurons that are not already connected. And we tend to feel unsafe when we depart from old paths because past experience with rewards and pain created those paths. When you leave them, it feels like you don't know how to navigate toward rewards and away from pain. In practical terms:

Your social bonds may feel at risk if you stop reacting to the "concerns" of those around you.

You fear you'll look weak and foolish if you stop railing against "the system."

You worry that important issues will take you by surprise if you stop watching "the news" for the latest warnings.

How do you dare take a break with all that internal pressure?

At first, it may feel more like going through withdrawal. You may feel an urgent need to criticize the cable guy, just to feel like you're on top of your game. But if you have the courage to live with the discomfort, sunnier information will shine in when you stop filtering it out. You will begin to realize how many of the flaws you saw around you were magnified by your own brain.

You can go back to criticizing when there's a real need, but you will always know how to take a break. And once you start letting the sun shine in, you'll realize that all of your critiquing has not really been helping you.

There is nothing like a good rant. Hamlet on the sky: “this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.” Of course, things didn’t work out too well for him. Everyone might have been better off if he’d just enjoyed being a prince.

On the one hand, you should criticize someone who kills your father.
On the other hand, you may just make things worse and you don't know the whole story and you have to focus on things you have power over.

While I do agree that it is counterproductive and bad for our health to be chronically critical, I also think that some critical thinking is essential. As with everything, it's in the balance. To criticize our poor leaders, disastrous environmental destruction and global climate change is very important, because they are a fact. But criticism alone won't change anything. A healthy person will manage to analyze what they don't like and find a course of action to help remedy what they don't like. In my practice, I see critical patients all the time, and the dynamic I see is that they can't move from the passive complaining stage into the active "change-something-about-it" phase. And often, this is a result of feeling overwhelmed by the barrage of challenges many of us face today: low income or unemployment, poor health and even worse healthcare, etc. Being stuck in criticism leads to chronic disease, but being able to move into the action phase brings empowerment and health, not only for the person, but also for the issues at hand. And the easiest way to help people make that shift, in my experience, has been to help them identify one issue and one action they can do while accepting that they can't change everything at once.

In life, it's generally the (dysfunctional) way we have learned to communicate our values: we let people know what we DO like, by saying what we don't like. To teach effective communication and the 'second' part in how we teach values to our children (Assure), we would say 'Thank you for putting the dishes away. It was very thoughtful.' The first part (Align) would be 'If you could put the dishes away today, I'de really appreciate it. I don't mind doing chores or working hard but but it helps me get supper started quicker.' RATHER than the critical 'You never put the dishes away. Your so lazy.'

When I was a kid, getting criticized was better than getting slapped.
And when my mother was a kid, she was lucky if her parents earned enough to buy food so she could stay in school.
The new generation will have good communication skills- and hopefully they will still clean up the kitchen instead of just talking about it!

:) I honestly think our tolerance to criticism / discipline depends on our 'love language'. My top love language is 'words' and fittingly, my emotional wounds are the harsh things my father said growing up. He also hurt us physically but though I know it happened because my siblings and mother have vivid memories, I have hardly any recollection of it. Just an observation but I've watched it affect elders with dementia also.

While generations might take steps forward in some ways, dysfunction doesn't usually. I think it takes sideways steps ... like a pendulum. It reacts, or over reacts. I see it every day, everywhere.

None of our 5 kids talk about cleaning up the kitchen but they will clean it occasionally :)

And ... I'm not sure why you responded that your mother was lucky if her parents earned enough to buy food so she could stay in school. Sorry. I would like to understand as I enjoy learning about criticism. My example about cleaning up was merely a communication example ... a way to express a value in the positive rather than the negative.

Criticism alone won't change anything, there has to be concrete action.

Here's the other side of the picture: Does ignoring issues really make the world a better place?

For example when most folk get up in the morning in a rich country the sheets they get out of are likely made by a slave (or very close to it) worker in a poor country. The clothes they put on, the same (workers locked in factories while they burn, etc). The coffee that is then consumed likely comes from another slave in another location.

Now, if I point this out to the person getting out of bed and having that cup of coffee, I'm criticizing them. On the other hand, what if I'm the slave burning alive in my factory and complaining about it? Same criticism regarding the same activity. Logically would it not benefit everyone for the person doing the criticizing to keep doing it as much as possible as otherwise there's a very real chance of pain, suffering and death from the person that cannot? Sure it might be annoying to be reminded that your hunt for the cheapest price means someone has to live an absolutely horrible life (I can go on, there's very little of our modern life that doesn't involve slavery of some sort, it's well publicized, one can google this).

You buy a chocolate bar, I criticize you for supporting child labor, you get annoyed because someone is criticizing you and you're sick of it. Thing is, what about the slave kid producing the chocolate? Does he not have a legitimate right to criticize and if he can't, should others not be able to do so for her?

It's not for lack of information. I know the arguments- in fact I used to teach it. But I saw that it was a habit, a filter, a way to vent, a way to connect. I decided it was not good, even for the people I thought I was helping.

I used to be an unrepentant critic of everything I came in contact with, until I realized that it cost me my entire social circle. Now that I have that impulse under control, I have successfully weeded out the people who have similar tendencies, as they have no interest in changing their own behavior. Better late than never.

First, a lot of appreciation for the beautiful article. Your perspective is widely supported by an overwhelming body of scientific research.

Just a kind offering to anyone who understandably focuses on the potential good that can emerge from seeing areas in a society in need of upgrade (and the natural concern that if the analytic/critiquing function wasn't called into action, then society could never or would far more slowly progress):

If the emphasis is only on what's wrong, how much good usually comes out of that (let alone how repeated criticism and negativity adversely impact one's happiness and well-being)? However, if the quick 'pinch' that can come from seeing an area in society that's in need of improvement/upgrade catalyzes a desire to help and take proactive steps, then the emphasis will be on bettering the situation and will lead to a very different personal experience.The same is true in personal associations.